Of Water and Ink
by Noa Alexandra
Summary: Years after the end of the war, those who survived linger on-and in some cases, those who should have died twice still walk the earth. Ino outlived her teacher, her best friend, and took comfort in the images she has branded into her skin. Itachi lives while his brother, his family, his mission are all gone. Two paths become one road.
1. I

Of Water and Ink - I

_A/N at end_

She traces her fingers over the twisting dragon. Even with its new form, the original shape of the ANBU tattoo on his arm is still visible beneath its new façade.

"I wouldn't have thought you to be the type to run away."

"It's not running away," he corrects her gently, distantly, "taking what you have and changing it to be of better use."

Ino and Itachi are sprawled out on the low bed, loosely covered by the mess of sheets shyly pulled to preserve their broken modesty. Itachi sits with his back to the headboard, seeming to barely notice her over his focus on the book that sits open in his hands, though it is plain to see when his eyes linger shut for moments on end that in truth he is savoring the tingling sensation her attentions are sending down his spine. She is lazed out like a cat fascinated by some novelty. Maybe that is what Itachi is to her—a novelty. She relishes the chance to study him like this, to so casually seek out the imperfections in his form. For now, opens however, she studies the dragon.

"Why a dragon, though?" she asks. "Something so ostentatious; it isn't like you. You always keep it buried under all those layers you wear, anyways."

Itachi opens his eyes to look down on her, slowly reaching his arm from under her touch to reach out and so gently brush the long blond hair from her back. "You're one to talk," he murmurs, but his words are lost, for he has already been mesmerized by the tree stained black into her pale skin, sprawled across her back like a spider.

_Shikamaru had his smoking; Chouji had always had his eating. But what did Ino have, to deal with the pain? Around her her friends dropped like stones in an avalanche. After the loss of Asuma it had felt like their team would be the first to go, to fall apart in a crucial moment and at least maybe die together. But it had not been them—no, they stuck together, fought together, lived together, but while they were together they would not die. The others were not so lucky. Ten Ten. Shino. Lee. Hinata. –Sakura. Everyone had pitied Naruto and Kakashi when they came out alive, Sakura dead by Sasuke's sword and Sasuke dead by theirs. Everyone had felt the village had suffered a great loss in Sakura. But what about Ino? Losing her best friend—was that not something to be pitied?_

_But Ino, like her brothers in arms, had shouldered the burden of crying alone and sought an out. She'd found it in Sai, the boy who had seemed to appear at the war's beginning and stood strong, a constant when their comrades fell. At first she had thought it love, romance—but she soon realized that, like her teammates, Sai was something separate from romance. He was a brother just as much as the boys she had stuck with since she was twelve was; someone who knew how to be the strong one when she was failing and—on the rarest of occasions—someone who let her be the strong one in return. They got through the worst of it together, because Sai too had, in his own way, cared for Sakura, for the village._

"_Hey Sai," Ino said one day. She was sprawled on her back in the grass, staring up into the sky, like Shikamaru used to when they were kids. "What do you think about tattoos?"_

_The sound of his charcoal scratching away at the paper stopped. "What do I think of them?"_

"_Yeah," she said, rolling over to face him. He frowned a bit more and turned the page in his sketchbook, and she knew he's been drawing her, but she paid his pouting little mind. "Like, would you ever get one?"_

"_I have one already," he answered slowly, catching Ino off guard. She blinked back at him._

"_You do?"_

_Sai tilted his head. "Of course I do. I'm ANBU."_

"_Was ANBU," Ino corrected. If Naruto and Kakashi had done anything to change the boy's life it had been to get him out of ANBU, where he was just another pawn for the slaughter, as Shikamaru had put it. "But that doesn't count."_

"_It doesn't? It is ink embedded in the skin—"_

_Ino stopped the boy with a weak punch to his arm before rolling back onto her back. "Why do ANBU have the tattoo, anyways? It's like a gang sign, or some sort of cult branding. Weird."_

"_Once ANBU, always ANBU," Sai said. She swore she could hear a bit of the darkness creeping back into his voice, but when she craned her neck to get a look at the boy he had gone back to drawing. She watched him for a moment, and then let herself fall back into a more comfortable position, lazily searching out shapes in the clouds. "Besides," he said. "We all wear the Konoha leaf." His observation drew no response._

"_Hey Sai," she asked after a minute._

"_Yes?"_

"_Would you draw me something?"_

"…_something?"_

"_Yeah. Something big." She played with the grass, running her hands through its blades like a child's soft hair. "I want a tattoo."_

"_Why?"_

"_It'll never leave me," she admitted freely. "Something beautiful and a part of me that I can't lose. Roots to ground me. Imagery to remember things by. You know."_

"_You're so cheesy," the boy whined. She rolled over and tackled him, pinning him in the grass with scarcely a heartbeat's notice, and her grinning form casts a shadow on him as she blocks the sun from his face._

"_Will you?"_

"_Sure."_

"But why a dragon?" Ino forces herself repeat. She rolls over to get Itachi to pay attention to her—or maybe to get herself back to paying attention to him—leaving his hand hanging in the air. "You could have chosen anything."

"What would you have suggested I have done?" he asks instead of simply answering her question. He looks back down to his book, though the conversation continues. "Left myself marked as ANBU? That wouldn't have made me very many friends, where I was going."

"I dunno, something more… suiting." She tries to think of something, studying his face upside-down as the pages rustle when he goes to turn one. There really is nothing she can think of that would suit the man more than the ANBU tattoo—a symbol of devotion to his job and his village, a clear statement of allegiance that would never fade. While to Ino each of her tattoos held meaning captured within the imagery, what icon would have enough meaning to Itachi to have forever rendered in his skin? Then it comes to her, and she rolls back over with a grin. "A weasel," she declares triumphantly.

Itachi raises his eyebrows in what she first thinks to be bemusement, but then he replies: "We considered that, actually. But we could not find a suiting way to incorporate the original ink into it."

"We?" Ino catches. Itachi lowers his book slightly.

"My partner in the Akatsuki and I. He felt it was his business to aid my decision, for whatever reason. As I recall it was he who decided on the dragon, with many a comments of the force it represented."

"The fishy guy?" Ino echoes with a laugh. "I could see him saying that."

"It was the language he spoke, force and power."

As Ino watches the man hesitate in turning back to his reading, she becomes curious. "Do you miss him, ever?" she asks. "Your partner?"

"Kisame and I never were friends, exactly," Itachi answers carefully. "But sometimes, when I'm fighting, I forget that it is not he to back me up. When you learn to trust someone else with your back, your life, you learn to work with their style. Adjusting to working with partners besides him was, admittedly, quite difficult."

He has avoided the question, and they both know it, but Ino is not about to press the matter. She knows he will close up if her prodding gets too forceful, and then she'll never get anything out of him. Instead she reaches up and traces the dragon again.

.

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Hello! This is part one of many. Of Water and Ink is a story I have been working on since NaNoWriMo ended—a good break from novel writing for sure. Though I will be posting it in parts, I would not say that any one part counts as a chapter—rather, each segment of past and present is designed to tie into the others, something which will become more and more obvious as we go along. I will be posting a segment every few days until it is complete. Right now the story stands at about 7k; it should finish up somewhere around 12, if my estimations are not as terrible as the usually are.

ONE KEY POINT: This is a piece designed to challenge myself as a writer. I tend to avoid intimacy (and dare I say romance?) in my longer work, so I'm trying to work on that. I don't normally write 'short' pieces, which is what this is aimed to be. Ino/Itachi is a rather random pairing, hence once of my tasks is to sort out all of the details of how such a pair could come to be. PLEASE, if you have any comments/critiques, ESPECIALLY if you happen to catch any of my verb tense errors (and I know there are quite a few, as I have caught many myself) let me know! My intent in posting this in segments rather than as a one-shot is to be able to take into consideration reader critiques as I go! On the other hand, if your main critique is that Ino/Itachi seem out of character/lacking character, please give them a bit of time for story development.

Thanks much for reading : )


	2. II

Of Water and Ink – II

_It was Ino who found Itachi, on a mission with Sai. She had seen him down below, recognized, swung off the trees she had been darting through, and formed the seals for the transfer jutsu in moments, a simple, automated motion that had her barely noticing what she was doing until she was in his body. The first thing she noticed was how terrible his eyesight was. _Sorry_, a wry voice seemed to say, but that was impossible, so she just shook his head and called out, "Sai?"_

_It wasn't altogether unusual, to come across the known dead walking since the war ended. Most of the bodies of those raised for battle had fallen apart as soon as the jutsu had been cut, but some had lingered on, wandering the world without destination, slowly falling apart. The last council of the alliance of the great nations had agreed to give criminals a proper death and give the rest what they needed to lead a simple but comfortable life, although it was a well-known secret that none of the villages were above extracting information from them first. And so it had become the duty of every ninja team to secure these individuals, both to gather secrets and to keep their own—and this was Uchiha Itachi, holder of one of Konoha's darkest truths._

_Ino had been privy to that truth, because it was what brought about the death of her best friend. If she hadn't been, she perhaps would have hated Itachi as much as the next Leaf ninja, as Itachi was a celebrated villain in Konoha history. But instead she had a standoffish pity for the man, one she had spent long hours considering when she had recovered from the initial shock of her best friend's death. It was only that tentative pity that made her seek Itachi's consciousness out and ask, _Can I trust you?

Can you trust anyone?_ the wry voice echoed back. It sent shivers down her spine—like he was the one reading her mind instead of the other way around._

We are Konoha ninja,_ she explained, pushing aside her misgivings. _We mean you no harm. Will you attack us if I release you? Or run?

I wouldn't get very far either way.

_This was Uchiha Itachi—Ino hardly had a big enough ego to let herself believe that for a moment. Still, there was no malice in his mind, only a vague amusement. She made up her mind and released the jutsu, returning to her body to pick herself up off the forest floor._

"_Ino?" Sai asked as he landed silently beside her. The exchange could hardly have taken a few seconds, if he was just coming to back her up, but sometimes time was distorted when you went from mind to mind. It had felt like minutes—long drawn out minutes—to her._

_The figure that stood before them seemed unimpressive at first glance. He no longer wore the heavy Akatsuki cloak, only simple blue and black clothing and armor underneath, his hair pulled back but brow no longer covered by the slashed leaf headband. He was unmistakably Sasuke's brother, though, from his raven black hair and eyes, tanned skin, and the creases beneath his eyes from excessive sharingan use. Besides, Ino had seen his face in the bingo books, before he'd been pronounced dead—and as she recalled he had already been pronounced dead twice._

"_You are Uchiha Itachi, are you not?" Ino called, ignoring Sai standing at the ready to release one of his jutsu. "You are supposed to be dead."_

"_Many people who are supposed to be dead are not these days," the man answered with a shrug. "And many who aren't are. Is it that weird to see someone like me?"_

"_You died twice," Ino said, annoyed at his ignoring the question. "Once by illness, once by using dying just as the others who now walk were supposed to. Sasuke confirmed that."_

"_Sasuke?" Itachi echoed. He sounds like he is trying to hold back some curiosity. "You know my brother, then?"_

"_Yes, I knew him," Ino confirmed. She studied the man, but aside from the blurred vision he appeared hardly like one of the dead who were decomposing on his feet. "You're not even a corpse, really," she said in amazement. "Why are you alive?"_

"_I would much prefer only having to explain once," the man said calmly. "I don't suppose you would take me to—who is Hokage, these days?"_

_Ino raised an eyebrow. "Hatake Kakashi, while Naruto continues his training," she said. Did he really not know such a well-known fact? The discussion of who would be the sixth hokage had been one of international interest._

"_Ah, if you would take me to Kakashi-san, then," says Itachi. "But in the meantime, I don't suppose you could tell me what has become of my brother?"_

"_I'm sure they will be more than willing to explain everything, and more than willing to meet with you, Uchiha-san," said Ino. It would so not be her job to tell this man that the brother he had died for twice was dead. "But I'm afraid we are going to have to restrain you, in order to take you into Konoha. Or, rather, I am going to have to take control of your body."_

"_For what purpose?" Itachi instantly asked. He studied her carefully, as if trying to determine whether she was worthy to take control of him. Or maybe that was just her nerves… _

"_You are still technically a criminal in Konoha, for whatever reason," she explains. "And we cannot just let you run lose. Until we have official clearance, you are a prisoner—I'm sorry."_

"_I am, am I?" Itachi asks, though he does not make it clear which part he is questioning._

"_And so I will take control of your body and place it under a henge, then I will be the one to actually enter Konoha." He seemed resistant, so she clarified: "The other option would be for us to knock you out and carry you in."_

"_That is much less appealing," Itachi agrees, although he is still eying her wearily. "May I suggest a compromise? Let me travel as myself until we get closer to the city, and then you can take control."_

_Ino's already high eyebrows rose further, disappearing behind her messy blond bangs. "We're hardly five miles from the city," she said. "In fact, I'm concerned that you got this far without anyone finding you."_

_Itachi looked around in bemusement, though with how bad his eyesight was Ino supposed it did him little good. It was rather unnerving, to see this man, known as one of Konoha's most terrifying criminals, seeming so passive and lost in where he was in the world. Had Ino not jumped into his mind she would have suspected to be under a henge already—someone else, posing as an international criminal?—but that was impossible. "Very well, then," Itachi said. "I would suggest you activate my sharingan to deal with the vision issues, but with a henge already you will probably drain what little chakra I have left anyways, so all I can say is—be careful where you step."_

"_I could find my way back to the village with my eyes closed," Ino had replied, already forming the seals, and she jumped into his body once more._

…

"You didn't answer," Ino teases. Her fingers find their way up his arm, to where the end of his ponytail hangs over his shoulder. "Why a dragon? I mean, your fishy guy could have said you should have gotten a naked mermaid and it still would have been your choice in the end."

"A naked mermaid?" Itachi echoes in amusement. "I'd say a dragon is more suiting than that, at least."

"Oh, come on," says Ino. "It's you, so if you were going to get something emblazoned on your arm forever, you'd have chosen something with meaning."

"I don't seem a mighty, powerful force to you?" Itachi asks in amusement.

"Nope," says Ino, "You're just a big fluff ball. Hell, you should have gotten it as a kitten; it'd have represented your personality better."

"Mmm, but maybe I'd just have been representing you," he replies, pointedly watching her play with the ends of his hair. She pouts and stops, rolling over so that the sheet wraps more around her, and stands to go look out the window. From the apartment she can see out over the village, to the woods and horizon beyond its borders.

…

This is the village? _the voice had asked. It was not wry anymore; it just asked the words monotonously. Ino gritted her teeth―he was talking to her through her jutsu, and she didn't like that, but she calmed herself to a civil tone before responding with bitterness―_

This was the victory we won.

.

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…

..

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A/N

Thanks for the responses! Again, just a warning about some possible tense issues. ^_^;; Please let me know if you find any of those, any other grammar/typo errors, or, more important—comments on the story! Thanks for reading : )


	3. III

_Of Water and Ink - III_

_._

_.._

…

_The village was in fact a shell of the city it had once been. The outer rims, which had been the thriving civilian quarter, were in ruins, rubble that the forest was beginning to take claim of. Even within the new withdrawn wall, the village hardly bubbled with the life and prosperity it once had. There were plenty of civilians, it was true―refuges who had flocked to what protection a ninja village, the ninja village that had led the way to victory in the war, might offer—but while there was protection there was little else to be found in Konoha. The city had no money to organize rebuilding, nor did any private parties, and so the city had fallen into the rut of depression. Ino understood Itachi's shock; she too had hardly been able to believe what the village had come to. She was more than happy to let him observe the muted city in silence as they crossed rooftops to the hokage tower, anyways._

_With Kakashi as the standing hokage, the back window to his office had been cleared, allowing for quick entrance of his ninja to his office should the need arise. Sai and Ino dropped in lightly so as not to disturb the briefing he was giving a group of chuunin, but they couldn't prevent the team from staring at Ino's body as Sai set it down gently on the floor._

_"Sai, Ino," Naruto, rising up from behind his desk, greeted tiredly, looking at them with a curiosity akin to the chuunin's. "Who have you brought in?"_

_"Be patient, dunderhead," Sai admonished, earning a light blow to the arm from the blonde. Ino rolled her eyes at their antics, but she had been glad to see them on good terms―Sai had always seemed the type to die in battle, and that he had survived when Sakura, Sasuke, and even Yamamoto had not had introduced the strange boy to the emotion of guilt and had always made his relationship with Naruto a tenuous one. It was a strange thing to have conflict over, because certainly no one wanted Sai dead, but… the idea was there none the less._

_They waited until Kakashi had briefed the chuunin, then retreated to a more secure location—the second office: a room without an open wall that could be entered through just as easily as they had by any ninja of leaf. Only then did Ino release her jutsu, blinking her eyes open to find herself in Sai's arms, and he gently set her down. Normally returning to her body was tiring, with extended maintenance of her jutsu, but with Itachi's extreme chakra depletion returning to her body she felt as though new life was coursing through her veins. She had to hand it to the man―if nothing else, he had earned her respect by being able to stand so tall without a hint of tiredness despite his wretched condition._

_"Uchiha Itachi!" Naruto exclaimed when his voice had returned to him. "But you're dead!"_

_"Quiet, Naruto," Kakashi admonished. "What's the first rule we set?"_

_"The Hokage must be in control of his emotions," Naruto grumbled like a school child. "But Sensei, Sasuke said he was dead!"_

_"I should much like to know," Itachi ever so gently interrupted, "What has become if my brother."_

_Naruto's face fell visibly. "You don't know?"_

_Kakashi looked over to the pair who had brought the Uchiha in, a slight eyebrow raise enough expression to form a question. "I figured it would be more appropriate for you to say," Ino said, omitting the thought that it was not her responsibility. Kakashi nods and turns back to their guest._

_"Sasuke is dead," he said shortly._

_"Dead?" Itachi echoed._

_"Dead," Kakashi confirmed. "He killed our teammate, one the best medics Konoha has ever seen, and for that he lost our forgiveness. I am sorry you should have to be troubled with this before passing, Itachi."_

_Itachi closed his slightly parted lips and the perfect facade returned, bur for a moment he was silent. Naruto was beside himself in shame, a look that Ino had seen more and more on the bright blonde's face since the end of the war. At last the man spoke again―"It is I who should apologize, as I had intended to give my story forthright, but… I think I may need some time."_

_Kakashi nodded, but at the same time he was already adding a stipulation: "We will leave you to yourself but for one guard," he said. Ino sighed when his eyes fell on her. "I am afraid Miss Ino will have to restrain you again."_

"_Really?" said Ino, voicing the irritation that had crept onto Itachi's face. "Can't we just have Sai tie him up or something?"_

"_No," said Kakashi. He looks to Itachi pointedly. "Until you have your story on permanent record, I am sorry, but I cannot let you have freedom in the village. Ino will take control of your body, but will leave your mind to you. With your capabilities, that is as much as I can offer you."_

"_Very well," Itachi replied. He looked back to Ino. "So long as you do not deplete my chakra further." She shrugs._

"_I don't suppose there's any books around her—no, _decent_ books, Kakashi-san. Sai?"_

_Sai shrugged and pulled one of the books from his bag, handing it over to Itachi, before leaving the room with the others. Itachi stared at it blankly. "I've got reading glasses," Ino said, pulling them from one of her bags as she took a seat at one of the arm chairs and setting them on the table before him. "Please sit. It makes the jump easier."_

_When she jumped into his body the sudden change was like a sudden wave of nausea—only, when her mind stopped reeling she could tell he was not sick, just exhausted. She pawed at the table until his free hand finds the glasses, and slipped them on carefully as she can—more than once had she stabbed someone she was detaining in the eye with the frames of the glasses, being unused to the new body she was inhabiting. Itachi's body, she observed vaguely, was not built altogether differently from hers—he was a tad bit taller, but a similar build despite their different sexes. His eyesight, on the other hand—even with the glasses she always carried with her for cases like him, ninja too proud to seek out the medical attention that could prevent eyesight deterioration—was absolutely terrible; she had had to squint to make out the text of the book Sai had handed her—_The Art of Conversation_. Figured._

_._

_.._

…

_.._

_._

When Ino turns back from the window she finds Itachi has also left the futon, and is pulling clothing on out of the drawers. "Book lost your interest?" she laughs. It is the same book Sai had given her to read those months ago—_The Art of Conversation_. Now that his eyes were recovering, he is rediscovering his love for reading, and after working his way through the two books Ino had that held any interest to him, he had turned to Sai's loaner.

"It's quite interesting, actually," he says, pulling a navy blue shirt on over his torso before turning back to her. "Perhaps you'd enjoy it, if you could manage to stay awake."

Ino wrinkles her nose. Her tastes and Itachi's are much different; he values more serious literature, as he calls it, while she values a good story and calls his tastes duller than the textbooks she had to read when she started studying healing—although that is rather an overstatement considering that one of the books he had read was, in fact, one of her textbooks.

"I'll pass, thanks," she says. She catches one of the shirts he tosses her and pulls it over her head as she speaks. She likes his clothes; they are just slightly too big, and are much more comfortable than the ones she wears to missions, where functionality is more important than comfort. "Sleeping on it once proved it a bad enough pillow."

.

..

…

..

.

"_Ino?"_

They're calling you, you know,_ the voice murmured, pulling Ino out of the darkness. She blinked down at the book in her hands, the characters swimming on the page._

What?

"_Ino, everything alright?"_

_Ino looked up to see Sai standing over her body, and she quickly blinked away the exhaustion. "Er—yeah, sorry. This—his body is exhausted. And that book is terrible, you know?"_

_The boy shrugged. He was her age, so she supposed she shouldn't call him boy if she didn't mean to imply things about herself, but it was a habit that would die hard. "Kakashi-san wants to know if the Uchiha is ready to talk."_

Yes,_ the voice said calmly from the caverns of his mind. It caught her off guard and had made her jump in her—his—seat. At Sai's quizzical glance, she just covered herself up, saying,_

"_Yeah, he's ready. Would you go get them?"_

_Sai raised his eyebrow further, but silently turned and exited the room. When the door clicked shut behind him, Ino released her jutsu and was sent back to her body with what could only be described as a mental thud. She forced her eyes open—her body is running low on chakra reserves as well, even if it is nowhere near where his had been—to glare at him. "How are you doing that?" she demanded. The man just blinked, taking off the glasses._

"_Doing what?" he asked, only increasing her irritation. Sai returned with Kakashi and Naruto before she could elaborate, so he had gotten off easy—that time. She would have her answer, before the end._

"_Well, Itachi-san," Kakashi had said, relaxing into one of the other arm chairs as Naruto stood nervously a few paces back and Sai took the seat beside Ino's. "Would you care to explain for us how it is you are alive?"_

"_Will you be taking record of this?" Itachi asked. Kakashi gestured towards Sai, who had unrolled a scroll in his lap and quickly ran through hand symbols before releasing a brush to float above it._

"_Sai's brush will create an accurate transcript, and we will… edit as need be at a later date. For legality reasons, I hope you understand."_

"_It is better if you take a good record, as I would like to put this story behind me."_

"_Very well then, go on."_

"_First, if you could tell me—how long has it been since I died the second time?"_

_Kakashi considers this. "It will have been four years in a month, if I'm not mistaken." Four years since Sasuke killed Sakura, Ino translates this to._

"_Four years?" Itachi confirmed. "That clarifies some things. In any case—I have found myself alive once more for about a month._

"_A month!" cried Naruto. "So you're not a left-over from the forbidden technique!"_

"_Ah, no," Itachi countered. "I am, of a sort. From what I've heard of those left walking, it is not the vitality of their bodies, but the vitality of their spirits that kept them beyond the release of the jutsu."_

"_So?" asked Naruto._

"_I died before the jutsu was fully released, but my spirit was still bound by it to this world, and I, too, was of strong vitality of soul. And so my spirit lingered on until it found a body—whose body this rightfully is I cannot say, but it had just been vacated when my soul happened across it. The body itself was not dead, precisely, but the sould that had animated it had already passed on. How long it took to integrate—I do not know. Rewriting of DNA in billions of cells, reshaping the body with chakra and cellular functions… I'd say it were impossible if not for my own existence. I'm sure Miss Ino would attest that my body is hardly in prime condition, but I assure you—I am wholly alive."_

"_Some jutsu, perhaps?"_

"_I do not know," Itachi said. "Although as far as I can tell there is no jutsu cast over me, so if it was a jutsu, it was not a lasting one."_

"_And—no offense—but who would bring you back?" Ino asked. Itachi sighed and his shoulders slacked just a hair, just enough that the Konoha nin could notice but not anywhere near a full breakdown of his emotional barriers._

"_I had thought, at first, that it could have been Sasuke," he replied. "But clearly I was mistaken. In any case, moving forward with matters, if it was in fact an intentional resurrection, there has been no sign of what the necromancer's intention was. I could hardly move, that first week that I found myself once more in a body, and even the second I lingered in the clearing where I found myself—until I found myself feeling hungry. For all intents and purposes, this body seems to have become one with a life, and so I decided I needed to find one for myself."_

"_So you headed towards Konoha," Naruto inferred. Itachi nodded._

"_As best I could, yes. I could guess my location by the types of trees and the position of the sun, but these eyes are nearly blind, and when I attempted to use my sharingan I found it has a very small chakra capacity. Perhaps with time and proper medical attention the paths will reopen, but for now this body is like a sick child's."_

"_You sought out Konoha in search of a life," Kakashi echoed, going back to what Itachi had said before. "Tell me, Uchiha-san, what life do you expect to find here?" It was not said as the demand the words suggested, rather it was a simple question, a more complicated way of asking—what do you want?_

"_I thought I would find my brother—or at least some hint as to what had become of him. That I have found, but it shortens my list of potential plans from one to zero. I do not know what it is I should do with this life, while it lasts—atone for my past, perhaps? That seems to be the most likely purpose for being given a second life—a second chance."_

"_We all know you have nothing to atone for, Itachi-san," Sai said quietly, breaking his silence. The other ninja looked to him in surprise before turning the attention back to Itachi, who shook his head._

"_There are many things I stained my hands with that I wish I had not—yes, things beyond the Uchiha massacre, as they came to call it. And no—I'm not saying I'd rather I were never a ninja, for I have no disillusions about that—the ninja way is the only way for me. But…" He turned his palms up from his knees, not, Ino knew, because he could see something about them; it must have been that he could still feel the life and death those hands had dealt with. "Killing in the name of something you stand for—in the name of the village you love and seek to stand as a defender to—stands at moralities edge close enough. In the name of a mission you hope will aid something you stand for—you've stepped over the line. When you can hardly remember the mission, it becomes hard to even recall where that line was; it's lost in the fog."_

"_If you will permit us the chance," Kakashi said slowly, "The village's honor was greatly tarnished by what Danzo and the council used you for. While we know what you did was in order to protect the village, the ordering of the homicide of the Uchiha is blood that rests on the village's hands, through the decisions her leaders have made. As the current leader, I would also prefer to atone for the past Konoha brought on you. Even without Lady Tsunade—" Even without Sakura, he didn't say, "—we have the top medical personnel in the world. Even if you wish to be free of this village for once and for all, let us first do you some aid in restoring that body of yours."_

_Itachi smiled ever so slightly, shaking his head. "Although I am afraid without medical attention I will not get far, I will do whatever I can to earn the aid, Kakashi-san. If you are willing to allow me to impose myself on you..."_

"_There is no imposition," Kakashi said, brushing that idea aside. "Only the matter of the details."_

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_A/N_ – As always, thanks for reading!


	4. IV

Of Water and Ink – IV

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"Ino," Itachi calls from the next room. "We need more eggs, when you get the chance."

"You could just put up a henge, you know!" Ino calls back, stepping into a pair of the pants she has taken to wearing since she stopped having anyone to pretend she cared when she looked like for. Sakura would have laughed at her, having turned from her old days of trying to fight in dresses—no, Sakura would have given her a pat on the back for finally taking her job seriously. If that is what it takes to get Ino to change, change comes at much too high a cost.

"Ino?" Itachi calls again. She realizes she stopped without finishing the thought.

"Yeah, yeah," she replies quickly, pulling her hair back into its customary high pony tail. She steps around the door and into the kitchen, yawning. "I'd swear you're just trying to get me out of this place… shouldn't it be the other way around?"

"It _should_ be, but I'd hardly let you play to double standards." Itachi carries on the conversation, but he's eying her carefully. "Are you okay, Ino?"

"Aside from being kicked out of my own home?" Ino jokes, punching his arm lightly. She helps him dish the eggs out, butter the toast, and they sit down for breakfast. "Couldn't be better."

"You're lying," he says from across from her, leaving his plate untouched while she is digging in. His face is completely blank—so blank as to rival Sai in his matter-of-factness. Maybe it's that relation to Sai that makes Ino able to be completely jaded in response to his bluntness.

"And you, Itachi?" she asks as she cuts one of her eggs. "Are you okay?"

He stares at her, like he's caught between answering her question and calling her out on avoiding his own, as either way he loses that battle, but the gaze drifts so he seems to be staring right through her, his eyes moving ever so slightly out of focus as he slips into consideration. After a few moments he blinks back to himself and picks up his silverware. "I don't know," he says candidly. "I suppose I have been better, but not in some time, really."

"Since before you died? —the first time, I mean."

Itachi shrugs, and manages to make even so trivial an action as chewing his eggs look like a deep and thoughtful process—at surface level, at least. Every time he slips back into thinking about before he died—and Ino thinks it is really his death he is lingering on, though she of all people should understand there are some fates worse than death—there is that ever so slight widening of his eyes, the barest slackening of the well-formed creases of his poker face. As Ino silently chews her toast, she watches his shell slightly crack, but it reforms again quickly, into that perfect porcelain mask that most would fail to recognize as a change. She wonders if he notices how much she watches him, for her to notice these things. It is a question without need of being asked. He notices everything.

Safe behind his new mask, Itachi swallows the bite he had been lingering on. "You could be right," he says vaguely, taking another. Ino frowns. She is right, he's basically given herself that much—but there is something more. Unfortunately he's sensed her attack, and they've fallen into a ceasefire: a breakfast silent save the clinking of their silverware and self-conscious chewing.

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_Within a month, Itachi could walk to streets of Konoha a free man. Of course, it was advised that he did not try that, as most people did not take kindly to seeing ghosts. Besides, it had taken all their efforts to convince Naruto that releasing the Uchiha's story to the public was not the best of plans, a battle that had concluded with Itachi dropping all guises of apathy and downright begging Naruto not to make the long years of his time with Akatsuki, posing as the villain to Konoha, for nothing. The information of Itachi's return was on a need-to-know basis—namely, the hokage and his pupil and any ninja who would be joining with Itachi on a mission where it would be too much of a hassle for him to disguise his identity. Itachi was a flawless actor and minimized _those_ instances, and in any case soon he, Ino, and Sai had become an unofficial team. _

_The trio found their niche as the main information gatherers and occasional hunter-nin of Konoha kept outside of the ANBU. Itachi and Sai shared a silent bond over their history at the hands of Danzo, and their experience was enough to make them as effective a team as any ANBU squad could be, if not a stronger one for their lack of anonymity to each other. After the betrayal of Danzo, and perhaps stemming from his own experience, Kakashi had a grudging reluctance in any dealings with the ANBU. They were supposed to be the personal forces of the Hokage, but for whatever reason he preferred to place his trust in Itachi, Sai, and Ino in the cases of missions carrying information more personal to the village._

"_Ino," Shikamaru said one day as she and he sat waiting for Chouji to finish their weekly dinner together. "You've been spending a lot of time with Sai and the weasel recently."_

_The weasel—it was what those in the know had taken to calling Itachi when they referred to him, much to the man's great chagrin. Ino felt uneasy at the statement. Over the years she had thought she would get used to her brother's way of making a statement to see how people would respond, but you never could, really—what did he want her to say? But she just pulled her smile out, crossing her arms over her chest and tossing her hair in what she had come to hope was an Ino-like fashion. "Getting jealous, Sensei?"_

_They liked to call Shikamaru Sensei, whenever he was away from work. Kakashi had tried to get Shikamaru to become a team leader many times, but he compromised, working with younger kids at the academy instead of taking on the more personal role of mentor. Shikamaru always just sighed in response to their teasing, but they could see him growing more and more at peace with himself in his new life. Ino wondered if he would try to become the mentor to Asuma and Kurenai's child, when she was that age—although even with the limits of a child's speech the girl had enough sass that Ino suspected she would make her surrogate father's life living hell if he even tried._

"_I think it's a good thing," Chouji said over a mouthful of donburi. "I mean, maybe you're not quite as conceited as you used to be, but you're starting to pay attention to your looks again, Ino."_

"_Did you just call me conceited?" Ino demanded—lightly. That was the sort of thing that her brothers could get away with that no one else could—well, except maybe Sai, and maybe—_maybe—_Itachi, but he was far too polite to just say such things. "In any case, I don't see how that relates."_

"_Just don't expect me to babysit your kids too," Shikamaru grumbled, turning out the window to blow away the smoke of his cigarette._

"_My _what!"_ Ino demanded, shoving at Shikamaru's back and making him choke on the cigarette smoke, to Chouji's great amusement. The waiter shot them a disapproving look, but could do nothing when Chouji was raking them in so much of their pay for the evening. Ino half wanted to huff and give the boys the silent treatment for the rest of the evening—and that's when she realized. That was something the old Ino would have done. She would have glared at them while Asuma tried to get the boys to stop digging themselves into an even deeper hole, then gone out that evening to visit Sakura, and they would have agreed that Ino's teammates were definitely the worst—well, unless Naruto had been back in town, in which case Sakura would argue very strongly that _her_ boys were definitely worse—but in the end would have sunk into late night giggling over how handsome Itachi really was, and maybe it wouldn't be so bad to have a tiny bit of a crush on him—provided the other didn't already, of course…_

"_Ino," a voice cut into her near nostalgia. She turned to see Sai leaning slightly through the window. "Kakashi-san has a mission for us."_

"_Right now?" Ino asked, almost pleadingly. The old Ino would have jumped out of her seat to get rid of her stupid, silly brothers, but she only saw them once a week these days, and it felt like they were slowly turning into water and slipping out of her vague grasp at reality._

"_Yes," said Sai. He held up a scroll—black. "Right now."_

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"Ino, Itachi-san," a voice cuts into her nostalgia. Itachi probably noticed that Sai had entered the apartment, but she hadn't. When she looks at Sai, Ino knows what to look for to figure out what emotions he barely understands he has, even after all these years. She knows that when he is just dropping by for a casual visit, there is the slightest spring to his step, like an old dog holding back the internal puppy of excitement at the prospect of greeting it's owner. That spring is absent, and Ino blinks, trying to fully bring herself back into reality. "Kakashi-san has a mission for us."

"Now?" Itachi asks, already standing to move his plate to the sink.

"Yes," Sai confirms. He holds up a scroll—black. "Right now."

Ino feels her spirits fall. "Another one?" she says, almost hoping that Kakashi just ran out of another color of scroll, but she, too, is already on her feet. Itachi takes her plate and she moves quickly back down the hall to the bedroom, only half-listening to what Sai has to say.

"Apparently."

"It seems to be a trend," says Itachi, close behind her. "As the population overall decreases, proportionally the number of them is going up…

"Don't say it like that," Ino snaps. The shirt of his she had borrowed is already on the floor, and she is pulling on one of hers—smaller, built to meld to her frame and move with her as she moves as any other ninja. "You sound like Sai."

"I can hear you, you know," Sai says from the doorway. But they all know it isn't the Sai-like way Itachi said it, it's that he said it at all—it's been on his mind and it's been on hers. It could be him next.

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_A/N: So I'm interested in knowing what it would take to get people to review. I know there are readers, and a big thanks to ShikaIno1, ShikaInoInuKikIchiHime36, and Mornings Light for being my three reviewers thus far! As I said in the beginning, this story is mainly a writing challenge for myself, so any criticisms/suggestions you have for improvement/other thoughts are most welcome! In the meantime, I'll pose a few questions that go a bit outside the story, in case anyone is like me and often wants to review but terrible at thinking of things to say that don't make you curl up in a ball in embarrassment—well, maybe that's just me, but still... these are mainly just questions that interest me._

_Do you have criteria you narrow down by when searching for fanfictions to read, and if so, what? (I.E. I usually start in the 100,000 words/all ratings/usually choosing a character I want to read about, and work from there.) Or do you just go by most recent updates within your fandom, skimming until you find one you settle into?_

_What is the best time of day for a fan fiction to be updated?_

_If choosing between two stories, would you chose the one that aligned with a pairing you ship or slightly better quality writing?_

…_how is my story doing? (^_^;; subtle, Noa, real subtle.)_

_And, as always—thank you for reading!_


	5. V

Of Water and Ink - V

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_Black. Her blood ran cold, and she nodded and stood silently. Another of those who should be dead walking—and worse, killing._

"_What? You're just leaving us to pay for you?" Shikamaru called after her. She could almost hear the grin in his voice, but it echoed distantly in her ears—like her brothers were just some movie she'd been watching and now it was back to reality. She had seen the way Shikamaru had struggled when Asuma had first died—he would know what her silence meant, having been there before himself. So she put on the face she thought looked like one she would have worn and turned to return the grin._

"_Come on, Sensei, can't you afford to pay for a lady's dinner every now and then, what with your babysitting gig?"_

"_Women," she swore she could hear him mutter as he slid back into the booth. She should have been angry, maybe—thrown something at him through the window or replaced his cigarette with a senbon when they were going past—but he had turned away and she used the opportunity to escape, taking to the rooftops at Sai's heel._

_Itachi was waiting for them at their usual meeting place—atop a building not too far from the Hokage Tower: close enough that they could go together for a briefing, but far enough away that it was not a standard roof for ninja to cross on their way in. Itachi had taken to wearing a hood when not under a henge, at Ino's protest of Kakashi's suggestion he try wearing a mask. With the assistance of Ino and Shizune, the man's chakra restoration had increased a ten-fold, and while the damages to his eyes were so intense it was unlikely he would ever regain full vision, they had begun more long-term treatment and gotten him set up with contact lenses that, though he complained about how they made his eyes itch, had restored him to a state that he did not need to constantly use the sharingan when not in battle. In the past two weeks he had begun taking missions with Ino and Sai, in order, he said, to pay for the treatment, although Ino suspected it was more due to the man's understandable growing irritation at being kept cooped up without purpose and the need of a distraction from wherever his mind was wandering._

"_Do we need to go to a briefing?" Itachi asked. "Naruto-san just told me that we had a mission before disappearing. It sounded like he expected me to know what that meant."_

"_It's a black scroll," Ino said darkly. She pulled the scroll from the bag she wore strapped to her leg and opened it, ignoring Itachi's expectant look. With a few seals she summoned through it her arm guards, which she slid on, adjusting the straps so that the thick material that covered her palms wouldn't slip._

"_A black scroll," Sai explained while she prepared, "Is a seek and destroy mission."_

"_A security compromise?" Itachi guessed._

"_Yes, of a specific type. It involves those who should have died again in the war."_

_Itachi nodded slowly. "I thought the villages were supposed to be extending welcome for them to settle back in the village, or a proper execution. I suppose that is just an idealistic dream, though."_

"_No, it's a valid one," Ino insisted. She had to insist. Like most things about her job, she had to constantly remind herself that there was an attempt at morality to it. "I mean, you're here, aren't you?"_

"_So what makes these black scroll missions, then?"_

"_Some of the dead who linger too long in the world go insane," Sai said bluntly. "Lacking purpose in life, they revert back to their purpose in life, which, having been ninja, was to kill."_

"_Bitterness over them being stuck alive, according to one particularly outspoken case," said Ino. She kept on adjusting her straps though they were already just right, avoiding looking at them. _

"_Insane?" Itachi echoed with a frown._

"_Today's mission," Sai said, pulling the scroll from his pouch and opening it a ways—enough to read the first few lines of text—"Involves on Shimae Kosuke, former leaf ninja, who was set up to live the remainder of his days in a village in eastern Fire Country. Rather than remain there peacefully, a few months ago we received word that he had begun harassing the villagers. Kakashi-san was going to send a team to investigate when he got the chance, but with the recent chuunin exam the village has been busy with security, and the team just couldn't be spared. A few days ago what was left of the village fled to the nearest city, telling a horror story of Shimae committing homicide against their people."_

"_Shimae Kosuke," murmured Itachi thoughtfully._

"_Do you know about him?" Sai asked. "There have been more than a few local heroes left standing; Shimae was one of the village he settled in."_

"_No, though the name is familiar," Itachi replied. "The Shimae family was long gone before I became a ninja."_

"_Long gone?" said Ino. She looked up at him, expecting the worst. "How do you mean?"_

"_No foul play, as far as I know," Itachi assured her. "But you know the death rates of shinobi in war times, I'm sure."_

_Ino nodded slowly, and turned her look to Sai with a final tug at her arm guards. She had been training with her boys before Sai had come to found her, so was already ready otherwise. "So we're headed out to the village, then?_

"_Yes," Sai confirmed. "We'll start from there."_

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"Where is this one?" Itachi asks as he pulls his hoodie over the top of his armor. "How long will we be gone?"

"A few days, tops," says Sai. "A genin team on a mission a few days north of here came across the target—the jounin sent them back to get help while he investigates. He should be waiting for us with the information."

"Which jounin?" asks Ino.

"Kiba-san."

"Kiba?" says Ino. Since the war had ended, Kiba, with only Kurenai left of his team, had taken to himself. Ino hadn't known he had taken on a genin team. "He'll have the location pinpointed, then," she continues. She slides the drawer shut and leans against the dresser while she pulls on her arm guards. "Who were the victims?"

"A caravan of street performers. The genin team had been hired to track them down and bring them their mail. Apparently the target had been travelling with them for some time, their decomposition hidden under bandages claimed to cover some disease."

"Who were they?" asks Itachi. Not who _are_ they, because he's seen black scrolls before. _Were_.

"They gave their name as Arakaki Koharu, but we don't have that name on record anywhere, so it is most likely a pseudonym, unless they were really so obscure. According to the survivors, the target is an earth specialist."

"Right, then," says Ino. "Shall we?"

Itachi is still tying the sword he carries these days to his back. Unlike the short sword Sai carries, his is a full length katana—something he says reminds him of his days as a young leaf shinobi, before he got involved with the ANBU.

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A/N – _Thanks for the responses to the last chapter! It is nice to hear from the readers. We're getting more into the main plotline here. This segment is short, the next will be quite long. That's how it goes sometimes! Thanks for reading and enjoy!_


	6. VI

Of Water and Ink – VI

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_As usual, it was Itachi who found them first, although with his bird messengers Ino and Sai arrived to meet him within minutes. "Who are you?" Sai asked bluntly as he landed before them, not giving a moment to react to their sudden presence—three shadows fallen from the sky._

"_They're civilians, Sai," Ino had cut in, her hand already glowing with chakra. The three figures tried to back away, succeeding only at pressing closer into each other. "Relax, I'm a healer."_

"_Who—who are you?" the tallest, the bravest demanded, taking a faltering step forward. He, like the pair behind him, was dressed only in tattered clothing, with bandages on his arms that appeared to have been torn from some sort of floral-print garment. He had his hand on some sort of knife—a broken dagger, perhaps, and he brandished it towards them._

"_We are shinobi of leaf," the healer responded, moving a step closer. Her words did not appear to ease the trio's fears at all, as the brave one shrunk back again._

"_I heard you talking," Itachi cut in. They peered at him, but even in broad daylight his face seemed obscured by the shadows of his hood. "You're from the village that was destroyed a few days ago, aren't you? Why did you not flee to the city with the others?"_

"_Th—they wouldn't want people like—like us coming with them!" the brave one stammered. Behind him, one of the other two—a girl who couldn't be more than ten—started crying, only to be shushed by another boy in his early teens. "What do you want with us? We don't have anything to give you!"_

"_We don't want anything from you. We're on our way to deal with Shimae Kosuke."_

_The brave one seemed to relax a little bit, although he still stared at Itachi with widened eyes, but the crying girl only sobbed harder. "Kosuke-san didn't do anything wrong!" the younger of the boys cried out. "That wasn't Kosuke-san… that couldn't have been…"_

"_Let me help you," Ino urged the brave one gently. "I can make it so your injuries heal properly. You can explain what happened while I do so—as payment, if you'd like to think so."_

"_And you'll let us go?" the brave one demanded. "You won't take us back there?"_

"_No one's going to take you anywhere," Ino soothed. The boy's eyes darted back to Itachi, then to Sai, before he allowed himself to nod, relaxing a bit more. He let the dagger fall slightly. "Thank you," said Ino. "May I unwrap your arm?"_

_The boy shook his head, reaching behind him to force the young girl forward. No longer obscured by his body, they could see her head was wrapped in the same floral cloth, covering one of her eyes. "Her first."_

_Ino analyzed the girl as best she could, letting the chakra fade from her hands as she crouched down and put on her sweetest smile. "Hey, sweetie," she said softly. "What's your name?"_

"_M—M—M—"_

"_Mai," the tall boy finished for her impatiently._

"_Mai-chan, is it?" Ino asked, ignoring the boy's irritation. The girl nodded. "And how old are you, Mai-chan?"_

"_Ei—eight."_

"_Eight! You're practically an adult. Now Mai-chan, I need you to hold really still for me. Can you do that? I'm going to try and make your head stop hurting so much."_

_Again the girl nodded, and Ino leaned forward, her slender hands gently peeling away the floral cloth from the girl's head. "I need water," she said in an undertone, a demand clearly intended for Itachi or Sai, the gentle guise slipping a bit as she examined the wound—a cut in the girl's brow that ran from an inch into her hairline to halfway down her cheek. She eased chakra into the girl's face, numbing the area, before prying the eyelid open—remarkably, the eye itself was undamaged, although the white was stained with blood. The girl whimpered at the forced opening and tried to pull away, but Ino held her still, and with the same hand that had numbed the face drew the blood out of the eye as slowly as she could, replacing it with a thin film of chakra. When she was satisfied she let the lid fall shut again, then released the girl to grab the scroll from her waist. She summoned washcloths and bandages, and with the water Itachi had heated for her began to wash the girl's face clean._

"_Unwrap your arm," Itachi said calmly to the brave boy hovering over the girl. Sai had produced two more basins with his ink jutsu, and Itachi had filled them with the water from his canteen and heated them with a simple flame jutsu. "You can manage to clean the damages there yourself? I will tend your friend."_

"_You're not going to hurt Kosuke-san, are you?" the younger teen demanded, still pulling away further from even Itachi's approaching attention._

"_I'm going to help you," Itachi said simply, crouching beside one of the basins as he retrieved one of Ino's washcloths._

"_Sit down, Sousuke!" the brave one snapped, pushing the younger boy forward. The name made Itachi pause, ringing out one of the cloths for a moment too long._

"_But nii-san—"_

_The older boy pushed his brother down, where he sat glaring at Itachi hostilely. Itachi quickly recovered and dunked the cloth again, saying smoothly, "Where all were you injured?"_

_The boy just glared more._

"_His leg," growled the brave one, already peeling the bandage off his arm. Itachi could see the way he was sitting to avoid putting pressure on the lower half of his left leg, but it was covered by his filthy black pants._

"_Roll up your pants, then, Sousuke-kun," Itachi ordered. The boy started to protest again, but an elbowing from his brother had him moving, stretching his leg out towards Itachi and pulling the cloth up out of the way to reveal more of the floral cloth bandages. Itachi moved forward and gingerly tried to find the end of the bandaging job, but it had been done terribly, tucked into itself, and was now so coated with blood he quickly gave up and drew a kunai to cut away the cloth. It fell away to reveal a gash in the boy's leg nearly seven inches long—a clean cut, like it was made by a sword or other blade intentionally, although the placement was strange. Itachi took up the washcloth and started to dab away the blood. He was no medic, but like any ninja he'd learned to deal with battle wounds. "Tell me what happened," he ordered the brave one, regaining his focus on the mission. There was no time for nostalgia._

"_No—first," Sai cut in, to his surprise. Sai was not one to interfere with other people's ways of working, and he, like Itachi, was normally so intent on the mission he would try to keep it flowing smoothly. "Explain why you're not with the other refuges."_

"_Kosuke-san was our sensei," the brave one said a bit coldly, but he stopped there._

"_Teaching you what?" Sai pressed._

"_To defend ourselves." The boy glared up at Sai. "We don't have parents, only each other, so we have to defend ourselves. You wouldn't know. You're ninja. You've got a whole village to fall back on."_

"_We know about defending ourselves," Itachi said sharply. "Your village. They would reject you for learning from Shimae? Was he causing problems before."_

"_No, everyone always likes sensei," the brave one answered, going back to dabbing at his wounds. "We just don't have a proper homes, and they don't much—"_

_He cut off abruptly when birds from a nearby tree started up into the air, grabbing for the knife he had set at his knee. Itachi's eyes flickered briefly into his sharingan, an automatic response as he looked up to analyze, but the disturbance was followed by silence. He glanced back to Sai who gave a single nod before vanishing away into the trees._

"_Now tell me what happened," Itachi repeated, turning back to his work. Suddenly Ino was beside him, pushing itachi out of the way so she could replace him in addressing the boy's wounds._

"_Bandage her head again," she murmured, pressing a roll of bandages into his hands before once again flicking through the familiar seals. Itachi smoothly transitioned over to the girl, whose face was now free of blood and left eye more open. Where the gash had been was now a long scab, artificially created, he knew, to hold back further bleeding. As gently as he could he wound the bandage to cover the injury, listening as the brave one spoke again._

"_We were training with Kosuke-san. Working with Sousuke and I, showing us how to defend against knives. He'd been in a bad mood all morning. Normally he holds back when he spars with us, but… he cut Sousuke's leg and didn't seem to care, told me to let him deal with it himself. I said no, but—he just started attacking me."_

_A sidelong glance was all Itachi needed to see that the older boy's body was in fact the most injured of them all; the gashes on his arm were, from the blood on the front of his shirt and the tears in his pants, hardly the only wounds he suffered. The boy kept talking, gritting his teeth as he tried to clean his arm, and Itachi turned back to finish dealing with the girl, clipping the end of the bandage so it was snug around her head, before turning to help the boy._

"_And I held him off as best as I could but I'm—I'm no match for Kosuke-san. Somehow I managed to disarm him, but then he kicked me and I hit my head on the wall. Sousuke told me Mai tried to stop him and he attacked her like that and then he went storming out. You've heard what happened to the village. I woke up a few minutes later and tried to make sense of what was going on—why would Kosuke-san attack everyone like that?—but I took Mai and Sousuke and we got out of there as fast as we could."_

"_There was nothing that you think could have set him off?" Itachi asked. The boy shook his head. _

"_He was in a bad mood all morning, like he woke up on the wrong side of the bed or something, but…" The boy turned away, looking off into the trees. Itachi finished bandaging his arm in the moment of silence—the wound there was not deep enough to warrant the wasting of Ino's chakra. "I just got Sousuke and Mai out as fast as I could."_

_Sai returned, silently dropping out of the trees to fall before them. "A raccoon," he said shortly._

"_Well," said Ino, wiping her hands off on the washcloth one last time before standing up. "Do you know where you are going?"_

_The brave one shook his head. "We've always done street tricks to earn food," he said. "So maybe we'll go back to the city."_

"_Sai, take a memo for me," the blonde girl said. She was sealing the washcloths and basins back into her scroll as she spoke, the children and Itachi all pulling to their feet. "Once encrypted. A message for the Hokages and the village guard. Give these three passage into Konoha and access to care at the hospitals. We will work the details out later."_

"_Passage into Konoha?" the oldest echoed._

"_You'll be safe there, for now," Ino told him. "We'll get something figured out for you later. If nothing else, we can finish that training, so you'll be safer out on your own. We cannot promise much more than safety. Do you know the way?"_

_The boy shook his head, but this time it was Itachi who responded with a quick series of seals that, with a sudden cloud of smoke, summoned a black bird, which swooped about to land on his shoulder. "This bird will lead you there," he said shortly. "It may take you a few days. Don't push yourself; be sure to drink lots of water. There will be food for you in the village."_

_Silently the boy accepted the papers from Sai, and the bird squawked and took to the air, circling around their heads a few times before flying west. The children hesitated for a moment before turning to follow it away._

"_Ino," Sai said in an undertone as they watched the trio leave. "This is something beyond me. We do not know these children; for all we know they could be petty thieves. Healing in return for information I understand—but sending them to the village, where we already eat on rations?"_

"_What—would you have me send them off to the cities to fend for themselves?"_

"_They are not our responsibility."_

"_If they aren't, then what is?" Ino demanded. She was met with silence—Sai had learned to hold back the logical answer, because that wasn't what she was looking for. She shoved her scroll back into her bag and spun around. "Come on. Let's get the black scroll done with."_

_Itachi moved to protest—she had been healing, didn't she need rest?—but Sai stopped him with a look. Itachi got them message. Wordlessly the pair trailed after her._

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_A/N – This comes a day later than I'd planned, mainly because as it is I am unhappy with it. Originally this section was to contain both a past and present segment, and while the present one is the length it was supposed to be, this one settled far too long for good flow. In any case, I may upload the present tense segment in a few days as "6.5" (terrible…) but most likely I will have to look into re-arranging things a bit until I have time to try and edit this segment down more than it already has. Bear with me on this!_

_On a different note, unless I do post this '6.5', I don't plan to have the next segment up until the 29__th__. So until next time, happy holidays and thank you for reading!_


	7. VII

Of Water and Ink – Part VII

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Ino takes comfort in travelling. Even when there is no clear destination, the fact remains: travelling has a beginning and travelling has an end, and so it has a purpose. It is free of the gnawing coldness that waiting in the village brings, and there is nothing to regret from travelling. The constant motion, never remaining somewhere long enough to think… Ino has considered requesting to become a courier before, but she knows she has duties to the village with her status as a jounin and her unique abilities. Still when she travels is when she is the most at peace: always looking forwards, never looking back.

It is when she reaches her destination that grim reality returns.

"Kiba," she calls as she jumps down from the trees. The man is sitting on a bag perched near the edge of a cliff, surveying the land below.

"Ino," he says back. "Long time no see."

He turns around and Ino swallows, for his face bears brutal scars he does not bother to hide. He surveys them with a slight hum forming in his throat, and the ghost of a smile twitching at the corner of his cheeks. "And Sai too. Just what I wanted. A bitch and an ass."

"For someone with so good a nose you sure smell like shit," Sai says back coolly. Ino just rolls her eyes—here she is with the two worst socializers in all of Konoha. Kiba starts to curl back his lip into a snarl, but then his eyes fall on Itachi and he slips into seriousness again.

"I haven't seen you before," he says a bit darkly. "Who are you?"

Before Itachi can speak, Ino cuts in. "Uchiha Itachi," she says matter-of-factly. Kiba is not in the know about the history of the clan, but he was one of the Konoha Eleven, and by that he has her trust. "He was caught up in the jutsu, and works with us now."

"You don't smell dead," Kiba says curiously. "And aren't you a criminal?"

"He's _not_ dead, and he's a Konoha ninja again, so no," Ino insists.

"Whatever." Kiba turns back to look out over the valley. "Akamaru is out there distracting the black scroll. He's been leading it around for three days while I kept people away. What took you guys so bloody long?"

"We got here as fast as we could," Itachi says smoothly. The trip they have made would take most people at least three days one way, and even Kiba's team must have made it in two, because Ino, Itachi, and Sai made the journey in just under twenty-four hours—including three short resting periods. They are done with the trip, and Itachi is eager to get the mission over and done with. He shares Ino's distaste for black scrolls. "I assume in the last three days you've come up with a plan of attack?"

Kiba does not respond verbally, only turns around, cups his hands around his mouth, and lets out a long howl that echoes through the valley. He waits a few moments, and is rewarded by a return howl—Akamaru, they assume.

"Akamaru will lead him to a good location," Kiba says. He swings his backpack on and buckles a strap that runs across his torso. "Our plan of attack," he continues, sliding his wolfish eyes up to meet Itachi's in what the other two fear is a challenging look, "Is attack!"

With that he takes two steps back and disappears off the edge of the cliff. Sai sighs.

"Shithead's more trouble than Naruto," he complains as he brings to life one of his ink birds and jumps delicately onto it's back. "I'll survey and back you up."

As he too disappears from the cliff, Ino starts towards its edge, but Itachi stops her. "Ino," he calls out, and his words are like sudden lead weights on her limbs. "Why did you give that man information about me so freely?"

She forces herself to turn back and meet his cold look with a puzzled smile. "It's _Kiba_," she says, like that explains everything. "You can trust Kiba."

"No, _you _can trust… Kiba-san. I? I'm not so sure." His corrections come softly, but his words are resolute. "Your Kiba-san just dove headfirst into an extremely dangerous situation expecting us to follow without giving us a roper briefing on the matter. That's not the sort of man I'd put my faith in."

"_My_ Kiba also happens to be the only one of his team who survived the war, and he was part of my generation while we lasted. I'd trust him with my life, and I hardly think he's not someone who we need to keep your _name_ from." She takes a few more steps towards the cliff. "Come on, that idiot's going to need our help."

"Ino." His voice cuts sharp as a trip wire, and stops her just as well. "We are going to talk about this later."

"If you say so." She vanishes over the cliff.

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_.._

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_It was easy enough to find the target—as soon as they got in sight of the remnants of the village he found them. The battle that followed was graceless and long. The man fought with the force of someone much younger and much more alive—his body was already falling apart, a fact they discovered when Itachi's sword cut a hole in his shirt that revealed the rancid flesh hidden below. Ino had made the mistake of being distracted by the gruesome sight, and Sai had to step in to protect her from a direct attack, and so he was knocked back into the wreckage of a building, where he remained, unconscious._

_"Well, Itachi," Ino said. "Just us now. But there's one way we can end this easily enough."_

_"What's that?" Itachi asked._

_"Catch him in a genjutsu, and I'll get him with my mind-control jutsu. It doesn't have to be a particularly strong genjutsu, mind you—just something to occupy his mind while I try to take over it."_

_"Right," said Itachi, and he jumped back into battle._

_She followed him at a somewhat safer distance—best to keep out of the range of their more damaging attacks. That wasn't to say she was safe—no, even in his crazed state the black scroll took on a typical tactic: attack the girl. Perhaps if he had been in his right mind he would have known better: kunoichi, like any other ninja, only reached adulthood after surviving the teenage years of arduous battles that weeded out those who couldn't carry their own weight. Kunoichi, like any other ninja, only survived the war if they were the best—and that in and of itself was hardly an insurance policy. The attacks aimed at her went unsatisfied, through Itachi's blocking and her own._

"_Left!" she called to Itachi, saving him a blow from the building crumbling around them. She leapt nimbly atop one such building herself—neither of them could follow her there, petite as she was._

_It was from that vantage point that she saw the jutsu coming at Itachi from behind the guise of a clone, and from that vantage point that, like an eagle on the hunt she dove through the air to land squarely between the target and her partner, and with movements like dance steps she was quick to send him flying away. In the moment's reprieve she turned to Itachi._

"_Don't take hits for me!" she snapped. "You'll end up like Sai, and it would be terribly impolite to make a lady deal with this guy alone."_

_Itachi shook head. "If you think I'm getting in the way, by all means, push me aside."_

"_I could, you know," she responded, as though he had issued a challenge. "I'm not just a healer."_

"_Clearly." Itachi turns his gaze forward, to where the target was pulling it's putrefying body out of the rubble. "All the same… I'd like to end this as quickly as possible. I'm going to use the sharingan."_

"_What?" He couldn't just do that like it wouldn't have repercussions—it was _her_ hard work he would be putting back by days, weeks even, depending on how long he used it._

"_Not for the genjutsu; just to see." When he turned his look to her, it had already faded into the treacherous red she had not seen for years—it made her nervous. "If you'd step back a bit—I don't want you caught up between us."_

_He is not patronizing—his words are earnest and sincere, and his face has slipped into the coldest mask of professionalism Ino has seen since she last saw Sakura at work in the hospital—and so she nods and returns to her vantage point as the black scroll comes charging towards them._

_._

_.._

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"You'd trust him with your life?" Itachi murmurs skeptically as Kiba's unconscious body goes flying past him and Ino into a tree.

"I didn't mean—never mind that. Sai! Get Kiba back to Konoha."

"—but—"

"You, he, and Akamaru all need medical attention that I hardly will have the energy to give right now." The big white dog growls as Ino picks up his ninja with what seems like the barest effort and tosses him up into the trees. A body coming to greet him gets Sai's undivided attention, and he grabs the jounin by the strap of his backpack and pulls him up onto the branch beside him.

"Did you ever train with Ugly?" he says with the slightest of frowns.

"Thirty seconds," Itachi growls through his clenched teeth.

"Akamaru, follow Sai from below." The dog just whines. "What are you waiting for?" the blond ninja snaps. "Get out of here, you two!"

Sai follows her orders, but Ino doesn't miss the silent look that passes between him and Itachi before he leaves. The target has slipped free of Itachi's genjutsu, however, and she doesn't have time to analyze the look. She is thrown back into the whirlwind of blades and jutsu, carefully tiptoeing the tightrope lines that only experiencing teamwork could have formed between her and Itachi. She does not need sharingan eyes to keep up with the weaving and dodging method of fighting the pair of them have honed, nor does he need them in order to keep the pair of them on par with the target. That is not to say they don't take blows. The target is an earth user; with what he makes look like simple jutsu the earth and trees come to life. One hit in particular makes Ino cry out as she is sent flying back.

Itachi holds back a curse and instead takes the target's moment of triumph and casts over him a genjutsu—not strong enough to hold the man entirely, just enough so he can make sure his partner is alright. Yet when he reaches where she has fallen and finds her body slumped over it is not out of concern that his body stiffens and he turns back to face the target.

The man's hoarse voice struggles its way from his bloodied throat. "Hurry up and stab me, Itachi."

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_A/N: I made it a New Years Resolution to get this uploaded, and so long as I get it up in the next few minutes, I've gotten one goal out of the way! Sorry for the wait; when you work retail in the holiday season you run out of time for hobbies and fun, and since Christmas I've been terribly absorbed in Dishonored and Minecraft! This story should be wrapping up in the next few weeks, but as I'm about to start my second quarter at University, I'm not going to make any promises of going back to my semi-regular schedule. Anyhow, thank you for reading, as always, and reviews and critiques are more than welcome!_


	8. VIII

Of Water and Ink - VIII

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_He was something to watch; a predator that flew like a panther with his sword as his claws. Even without his sharingan he had been fast to dodge the black scroll's attacks, and faster still to plant his own. The black scroll was no pushover, either; though Ino was these days considered near the top tier of Konoha's non-ANBU ninja, watching them fight made her all too aware of just how much more she had to learn to get to that level. She flitted on the edge of their battle radius, just waiting to cast her control over their target, but she was so mesmerized watching them fight she nearly did not notice when Itachi caught the man in his illusion. _

_"Ino!" Itachi called as the man continued to fight against some hallucination. "You've got maybe a minute before he notices."_

_"Right!" she called, and with a leap that would have betrayed her ninja training to anyone who hadn't known was beside him. She sat with her back to the remnants of a nearby wall and cast her jutsu, and for a moment the world went dark._

_The first thing she noticed in becoming aware of the target's body, a particular sensation that she would probably never get used to, was the pain. It burned through his body, but especially did it bite in his chest, where the tear in his shirt had already revealed the decomposition to them. It was no wonder that he had gone insane, she found herself thinking-but she stopped herself before she could go down that train of thought._

_In opening his eyes she found Itachi leaning slightly over her own body, but his eyes were on the target's. She opened his mouth and found it painful to speak—and his voice came out in a growl. "Okay, Itachi," she struggled out. "This is the easy part—stab him."_

_Itachi straightened again and fixed her with a particular look. "Won't that kill you as well?"_

_"No, it'll just cancel my jutsu, and I'll be back in my body." She tries to position the man's body better, but the result is a cacophonous cry escaping from his lips at the further pain the movement triggers. "Hurry it up, would you?" She growls to Itachi. "Put this bastard out of his misery."_

_Itachi nodded, like he didn't trust himself with words—but that was impossible. This was Uchiha Itachi. On orders or no, he had nearly single-handedly wiped out the Uchiha clan while they, for the most part, lay sleeping. There was nothing in the simple ending of a target that would make such a man hesitate. Ino was imagining things. She drew herself back into reality, as he brandished his sword and plunged it into her—_

_First there was pain, and then the black._

_She swam desperately through the darkness, feeling desperation growing in her in leaps and bounds. There was a constriction in her chest, like she was slowly suffocating. _

Relax_, her father's voice soothed._

Most likely,_ Sakura's voice hypothesized, an echo of a most distance memory, _in the absence of a body your consciousness has nothing to measure time with. It's hardly a second in reality, but I suppose without perception to measure it by, for you the jump could take—

_Gasping, she landed firmly in reality. The pain wasn't so bad now that she was back in her own body, already fading away…_

"_Ino?" came a soft voice._

_She blinked the spots out of her eyes. "Is he dead?"_

"_Yes." Of course he was. Itachi peered down at her. "Are you alright."_

"_Of course I am." She moved to stand up and the world went sideways, sending her head crashing back into the tree. "Bad jump," she clarified before he could comment, like it was the most natural thing. She pressed her hand to the base of her neck—that must have been where he stabbed the target._

"_You felt my sword."_

_She cocked a brow and looked up at him. "Well, yeah, for a second," she half-way lied. "It's nothing I'm not used to." He didn't reply, but she could practically feel the sudden wave of unreadable emotions coming off the man—was he flaring his nostrils? She could have laughed. "What would your old associates say if they saw you tutting like over a mother hen over a bit of pain?" she says, fixing her face with that smile she thinks might resemble the old Ino—not that he knew the old Ino. She pushes herself away from the tree, and this time she ignores that her vision has gone all spotty and her knees have suddenly disappeared and forces herself—_stand!

_Apparently her teasing was effective, for the wall of emotions just vanished and she could swear that was a slight tilt in his head—"Tutting?"_

_She took a step forward and slid her arm into the crook of his elbow. If Itachi noticed the extra weight she was leaning into him, he said nothing. "Yes, tutting!" she said. "Or as close to it as the Great Uchiha will ever get."_

"_I didn't say anything," he countered, but it was ineffective._

"_Exactly. You forget I spent years trying to read your brother. If there's anyone left in the world who can understand what Uchiha mean when they aren't saying anything, it's me."_

_Sakura had been the one to hold the title of 'Uchiha Translator Extraordinaire'—fat lot of good that had done her. She'd know what it was Itachi was really not saying, because even in his head, Ino couldn't imaging the Great Uchiha tutting. She pushed down the thought and forced herself to release her crutch, turning around. "Can you handle the body? I need to make sure Sai's not dead or anything."_

"_Right."_

_But he didn't budge. His eyes her still on her, until she reached the building that Sai had collapsed in his impact. And when she was out of sight behind what was left of a wall—he didn't miss her stumbling or grabbing desperately for what relief support from the structure could provide—he had half a mind to throw the sword still glistening red to the ground. Instead he drew an extra shirt he would hardly miss and wiped the blade clean before slipping it back into the sheath and securing it on his back. The shirt he burned with a blur of hand seals._

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"No," says Itachi, sheathing his sword. "I'm not going to do that again."

"Don't be ridiculous," Ino growls. "Get it over with!"

"No, Ino." He crosses his arms and stares her down. "You are being selfish and immature, and I'm not going to stand by and let you abuse me like that."

"Abuse you?" Ino echoes. "Look, Itachi, I don't know where this is coming from, but whatever this is it is totally unprofessional, which is so not what I'm used to from you. Now let's finish the job, and then you can throw your hissyfit, right?"

"Don't you try to patronize me, Yamanaka," Itachi snaps. "You can try and hide from it all you want, but I'm hardly someone to be fooled in the way of avoiding what is real for the sake of convenience."

"Conven—" Ino is cut off by the shuddering of the body that is the target trying to get through. "Oh, sure," her commandeered raspy voice tries again. "Because dying is convenient. But if you're so opposed to working with me in the most efficient way we can, why don't you just go transfer to another team, hm? But do it after the mission."

"Because I like you," Itachi says, like it is plain as day. "And if you'd ever let me say it without running away, I think we have a chance at love. Which does not involve stabbing each other."

"Right, then, now that you've chosen the most ridiculous time ever to start emoting…" Ino grumbles. She reaches down to find the black scroll's weapons pouch, pulling out a kunai. "I guess I'll just do this the hard way"

Holding the blade out in front of the body, pointing in towards it's chest, she braces herself for the plunge.

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_A/N – Well, for now I'll aim to doing the final updates once or twice a week. Unfortunately (for the story, not me!) the last week has been a flurry of activity and readjustment to my new schedule, and so has slowed down my writing/proofing quite a bit, and as I like to be a segment ahead in writing before I post the current one this segment has been stretched out over a long period of time work-wise—ironic when it is two relatively short (in time) scenes. Anyhow, reviews, critiques, and criticisms are always encouraged, and thank you, as always, for reading._


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